


Lupus Maledicte

by Quintessentila (Woodbyne)



Category: 2P Hetalia - Fandom, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: And later there will be graphic violence sex knotting and angst, M/M, Pack Dynamics, Sassy Canada, Werewolves, age gap, questionable Latin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1438270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woodbyne/pseuds/Quintessentila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matthew Williams' evening is not going as he planned it. His brother is being a dick, his concert turned out to be a gathering of all the werewolves in North America and now he's somehow managed to get himself stuck with the grumpiest, scariest looking werewolf of all. As if that wasn't enough to deal with, he's going to get a nasty surprise when he gets home. </p><p>The life and times of a teenager who's had it up to here with three grown werewolves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bad Moon Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is a story that was brought on by listening to Werewolves of Armenia by Powerwolf one too many times about midway through last year and I have decided to break it up into chapters because it's over 17k and that's a bit much for one story. This is a SUUUUUUPER belated birthday gift to my dearest Xena, who's url I have usurped.  
> And a huge thank you to my darling cloudpain for editing out my stupid.

Alfred screeched, recoiling in horror at the dark figure before him.

Matthew sighed, looking from his outfit to his brother with an expression of mild annoyance on his face.

“Oh, come on, Al-”

“Who are you and what have you done with my brother!?”

“Alfred-”

“Out, out foul demon!” the American cried, holding out his fingers in the shape of a crucifix as though he was attempting to exorcise his brother. Or at the very least get the eyeliner off of him.

“ _Alfred_!” Matthew snapped, now looking more than mildly pissed off.

Shaking his head and still looking totally dazed, Alfred spread his hands wide, defeated by that outfit, “Mattie. What happened to you?” He wasn’t going to pretend that it was every day that he saw his little brother in leather pants, and frankly, Alfred hadn’t even known that Matthew owned a pair of boots with that many buckles. How had he gotten them on?

“It’s a _metal_ concert,” the Canadian sighed, fingers twisting self consciously into the fabric of his black clothing. Standing in front of his own mirror, it had looked good enough. The dark colour made his skin look paler, his hair and eyes brighter, “What did you _think_ I was going to wear? A polar bear onesie?”

“Something that covered your ass, maybe,” Alfred retorted, pursing his lips and peering around his brother at the back of his pants, wondering if they were sprayed on, “Or maybe something that doesn’t scream ‘cut-price bondage slave’?”

Matthew went a very unflattering shade of red, his face contorting into a scowl. “Thanks, Al,” he muttered acidly, turning and slouching down the hall with his thumbs through his belt loops and the thick soles of his boots klumping down the stairs.

It wasn’t until Alfred heard the car start and the tyres scream in protest against the tar that he realised that he might have been a little insensitive.

* * *

 

This didn’t feel like any concert Matthew had ever been to before. The people around him were… rougher around the edges. And that was even taking into consideration the genre of music that was going to be played. He had considered himself lucky to get tickets, seeing as how the band was very much underground and didn’t have that much of a following. Or so he had thought. The stadium where the concert was being held was huge, and the number of vaguely animalistic-looking fans was fast heading towards the thousands. This was a turnout he had not anticipated. At least the clothes Alfred had insulted helped him blend in, though he was getting a lot of strange looks from the larger persons in the crowd. And there were a surprising amount of large people. Not large as in fat, though. Large as in tall, large as in muscled up and intimidating.

Hunching his shoulders up, Matthew ducked his head and went to join the queue of people lining up to get in. This had better be a damn good concert, because the way his day had been so far was not exactly lending itself to a fun evening out.

Reaching the entrance gate, he sighed, tapping his foot on the asphalt as the man in front of him argued with security. Great. Just perfect. After all the trouble he had gone through to be here - including Alfred bailing on him in favour of working - he was now stuck behind some six-foot-fuck behemoth with a voice like a thunderclap and a personality to match.

“I’m telling you,” the man insisted in the most impressive snarl Matthew had ever laid ears on, “I was _invited_.”

“No dice,” growled one of the bouncers, both of whom were muscled up like unnecessarily heavy duty assault tanks. “No ticket; no entry.”

Matthew didn’t think. He just didn’t want to have to stand in this stupid line another second longer. Pulling Alfred’s unused ticket from his pocket, he shoved it past the colossus in front of him and at the bouncers.

“He’s with me,” he sighed, and the two of them were ushered along through the turnstile gates and to the arena, Matthew not noticing the pair of eyes that seemed to be boring through the back of his neck.

* * *

 

This concert was amazing. The energy that was buzzing around the stadium was incredible, almost animal, throbbing, pulsing, hostile and electric, thrilling. Matthew couldn’t seem to be able to find enough breath in his lungs. His skin felt like it was alive, almost crawling the way it did when there was an unexpected sound in the dark of the night, but lacking a good deal of fear.

“Shi-!” he swore, stumbling over someone’s foot in the darkness and doing an awkward little hop-skip dance to try and turn and apologise to whichever one of the Goliath-like metalheads he had tripped over now. He gulped. It had been the man he had let in before him, and he looked like he was about to break heads. He hadn’t had a chance to really look at him from the front, but the man was terrifying. His face was craggy and scarred, eyes that seemed too bright dragged him into nothingness as deep as the dark circles beneath them and Matthew was scrambling backwards and bumping into even more people before he even realised that he was doing it.

“Sorry!” he squeaked, clearing his throat and sneaking back into the crowd. He could feel those strangely coloured eyes on the back of his neck and it was giving him the creeps. The closer to the front of the crowd he got, the bigger the men and women got until every person around him was well over six foot and they were all giving him the side-eye.

The low, resonant drone of ten thousand voices all whispering to one another stopped suddenly, and Matthew paused mid-step, not wanting to disturb the sudden silence that had descended. It was so eerily quiet that he could almost hear his own heartbeat. The feeling was intense, electrifying, and Matthew wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt so utterly apart from a group of people before. Every single person around him was waiting with baited breath for something to happen and he had no clue what was going on. Not for the first time that night, some vague, hair-raising instinct told him that maybe he shouldn’t here.

Footsteps broke the sudden silence, ringing up from behind the stage though Matthew was almost positive that not even stage microphones would pick that up. From the wings came forth a group of about ten men and women, all of whom looked to be in about their mid-forties, grizzled and lined with age and wear. The biggest of them all, a woman who looked like she could have single-handedly wrestled an elephant to the ground with nothing but her hands and teeth, stepped forward and spread her arms wide to embrace the crowd. When she spoke, she sounded as though she had been smoking ten packs a day all her life,

“Moon Brothers! Moon Sisters!”

Oh. It was going to be one of _those_ concerts. Or maybe not. The bottom dropped out of Matthew’s stomach as he realised that no one on stage was carrying any sort of instrument, and there were none on stage either.

As one the crowd lifted their voices in an eerie, bone-chilling howl, and Matthew felt the hair on his arms prickle as it stood on end. Suddenly the danger had seemed strangely absent earlier was now pounding in Matthew skull as the people around him tipped their heads back, the keening sing-song of wolf howling.

The hollow sound of a thousand howling voices had Matthew shaking in his boots, slowly backing for the exit. It felt like his chest was being crushed and it took him a moment to realise that he should actually be breathing.

Tripping over his own shoes, he turned to look up at a huge woman, her pale green eyes oddly canine.

She growled, a true, wolfish snarl, and Matthew choked back a terrified sob. What fresh hell was this? Turning away from her he felt hands snatch at him, dragging painfully across his skin only to pull away as he moved past them. Then the baying started, panting snarling chants of, "Human!" echoed through the stadium and Matthew deeply regretted his decision to get out of bed that morning.

Panic clawing at his insides, Matthew tried to make a break for the exit through the press of people, all of whom suddenly looked a lot more hostile than they had done earlier and who were forming a barrier to block his path.

" _Human_!" the woman he had bumped into yowled, and Matthew saw his life flash before his eyes as she began shoving through the crowd towards him.

"He's with me," a gravelly voice announced, one large hand descending on Matthew's shoulder, almost making his knees buckle. Turning to face his would-be hero, he saw that it was the man from earlier, the one he had let in spitting his own words back at him and Matthew's knees really did give out that time, only to have the stranger wrap an arm around his waist to keep him upright.

"Under what covenant?" The woman spat, eyeing Matthew viciously.

"Under pack covenant," the man behind him answered back coolly, and Matthew didn't know what the hell was going on, but he wasn't sure if he should be grateful or despairing that the man who seemed to have rescued him from uncertain death was larger than his assailant.

"You have no pack, Bonnefois!," she snarled, eyes wide with feral anger and Matthew was almost positive at this point that he had to be dreaming.

Bonnefois, or whatever the behemoth behind him was actually named, let rip with by far the most threatening snarl that Matthew had heard all evening and he cringed in fear, too stunned and bewildered to try and pull away from the man who had an iron grip around him.

"I claim the human as pack," he answered, voice booming out across the gathered men and women around him and they shifted and grumbled around him, pressing closer and Matthew felt a swoop of fear, "Who challenges me?"


	2. Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I claim the human as pack," he answered, voice booming out across the gathered men and women around him and they shifted and grumbled around him, pressing closer and Matthew felt a swoop of fear, "Who challenges me?"

 

The murmuring grew louder, rising to a dull roar around them. Giving a derisive _tsch_ , he pushed forwards through the thronging crowd, yanking Matthew along beside him like a rag-doll. Stumbling forward, he looked up with wide, confused eyes at the hard-faced man beside him as he was half-dragged across the length of the stadium and out into the markedly cooler air of the outside. The second he was released, Matthew made a break for his car, not entirely sure what had just happened in there but not wanting to stick around and find out.

An irritable sigh sounded beside him and a large hand caught his arm and tugged him back, which would have prompted a scream from Matthew had a large hand not clamped itself down on his mouth. The hand was warm and rough, covered in callouses. Matthew didn't even bother to think twice before he bit down on it. For all the good it did, the man holding him only sighed and the Canadian once again looked at the stranger who had just - saved his life? Was that really what had just happened?

"If I let your mouth go, will you scream?" the gravel in his voice seemed to have evened out into a resigned purr and he seemed marginally less threatening now. Marginally.

Slowly, weighing up his options with every movement, Matthew shook his head and removed his teeth from the man's palm. Grimacing, the stranger took his hand away, wiping the spit off of it and onto his jeans. Like Matthew he was dressed all in black, though he seemed to have put a lot less effort into it than either Matthew or anyone else at this event. Just a tank top and a pair of black jeans.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Bonnefois demanded, a stern expression on his face as he stared down Matthew, who - feeling considerably safer now that he had the use of his mouth again - glared right back.

"What am _I_ doing here? I was trying to go to a concert! What's going on in there? People were howling and calling me human! Like, like..." he swallowed, taking a few steps backward and almost tripping over his own shoes, "Like they _aren't_."

Bonnefois gave him a look of deep scepticism. Or maybe... not quite, he was a little difficult to read. It was more as though he was silently judging Matthew for being that dense.

"You've got a bit of a flair for melodrama, don't you?" the other man asked, still staring at Matthew very intensely, as though he was trying to figure him out.

Matthew huffed, his panic subsiding slightly.

“Jesus,” Matthew sighed, running a hand through his hair and feeling the stiffness of terror leave his muscles, “Don’t scare me like that. I thought I was in a horror movie. So what was going on in there, anyway?”

“You just interrupted a gathering of werewolves,” the tall man deadpanned and Matthew scowled.

“Be serious,” he chided, giving the other a disapproving look.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” One brow raised, arms folded and expression grim, he really didn’t and the shorter Canadian swallowed thickly, his pulse beginning to quicken.

“Come on,” Matthew said, taking a step backwards, fumbling a hand along the line of a car beside him. This man was obviously clinically insane. “ _Werewolves_?” He was still backing up and getting faster as he did so but the other man just kept coming. “ _Really_?” fear made his voice waver and the looming figure stopped, running a hand through lank, red-blond hair.

“Yes,” he sighed, sounding disgruntled which he had no right to be. “Werewolves. Really.”

“Prove it!” Matthew said, grasping at straws

“Do you want me to _bite_ you?” Bonnefois asked softly, the word bite sounding crisp and painfully serious in the damp night air around them. As he spoke, Matthew was almost transfixed by his teeth; just a little bit too long and sharp for Matthew to be entirely comfortable with.

“Please don’t,” the human said quickly, backing up until he walked right into someone’s parked car - thankfully without setting off the alarm because to have a whole stadium full of werewolves on his metaphorical tail was the very last thing he needed just then.

The self-proclaimed werewolf nodded and huffed to himself, almost as though he approved of Matthew’s answer.

“Okay, okay,” the human said, waving his hands as though he was trying to quiet a crowd of screaming people, “Okay. Let me get this straight. You’re a werewolf. Your name is Bonnefois?”

“My name is Matt,” the other corrected sharply, words snapping out like a whip.

“Matt. Fair enough. I’m Matthew. I’d say it’s nice to meet you but really I’m a little bit hysterical right now and this whole situation is too weird to be called nice. So, you’re Matt and you’re a werewolf?”

Matt nodded, his expression neutral and his arms folded over his chest.

Taking a deep breath in through his nose and letting it out slowly through his mouth, Matthew felt like there were fireworks going off inside his skull; deafening and disorientating him.

“So, supposing I believe you and there’s a pack of wolves in there, what would they be doing?” he asked carefully, hoping that he wouldn’t regret asking that question.

“More than one pack. Those are all the pack leaders from all over North America. They need to pick a new regional Alpha. Like the human president, I guess.” Matt shrugged, “The current one is too old. They need a strong Alpha. The strongest.”

“You’re an Alpha?” Matthew said, regarding Matt with new eyes. That would explain why he was built like the human equivalent of Fort Knox. “Where’s your pack? Did you leave them at home?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Matt sniffed, looking more than mildly annoyed by the constant barrage of conversation. “I don’t have pack or territory.”

“Yes you do,” there was an expression of utter horror dawning across Matthew’s face as he looked up at Matt, “In there, you said, you said- ”

“I said what?” the werewolf’s tone was icy, as though he was daring Matthew to bring up what had been said inside the stadium.

“You claimed me as pack. Under covenant,” Matthew wasn’t in any way shape or form familiar with the laws that he assumed were probably in place in a werewolf society - the fact that he was even going along with this lunacy was surprising himself - but covenant was a pretty hefty word to be throwing around under any circumstances. Matt grimaced and it was the most human expression Matthew had seen on his face all night. It was almost as if the werewolf had been hoping that he wouldn’t have noticed that. “That’s why you’ve been answering all my questions,” he declared, judging himself correct because Matt looked increasingly uncomfortable, like a child called on to answer an awkward question in sex-ed class. “Wait-” a flash of panic ran through Matthew and he started edging away from Matt again, “I don’t have to be a werewolf too, do I?”

“No,” was the vehement answer, and Matthew relaxed a little.

“Okay, phew. So can I go home now?” he asked hopefully. He just wanted to go home and wash the eyeliner off his face and trade in the tank top and leather pants for a hockey jersey and a pair of boxers and sleep off this acid trip.

“Sure, get in,” Matt shrugged, gesturing at the beat-up old pickup that Matthew was presently sneaking along.

“Um… that’s okay, thanks, I have a car,” the human gave Matt a tight smile, still attempting to sneak off.

“If you leave without me they will find you and probably kill you.”

“Ooooh my _Gooooood_ ,” Matthew moaned dragging both hands down his face as he looked around, searching for something - a candid camera maybe - “Can tonight get any _worse_? Fine. Take me home,” he let out a huffing breath, deeply unhappy with the whole situation.

“What’s your address?” heading around to the driver’s side of the pickup, he opened Matthew’s door.

“13 Beech Street,” Matthew sighed, climbing in, “And if you try to eat me on the way there, I am going to stick in your Goddamn throat.”

Matt huffed, rolling his eyes as he started the engine.

“I mean it!”

The battered red truck pulled out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of exhaust fumes behind it as it roared off into the night.

“13 Beech Street,” a voice chuckled in the dark, white teeth flashing.

 

 


	3. False Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little blood and some moderate sad.

Alfred groaned as he hung his coat up. Covering Toris’ shift on the delivery route may have saved his ears from his brother’s bizarre taste in music, but it also wore him out completely and he had biochem in the morning.

Scuffling in the kitchen.

Probably just Matthew getting some kind of midnight snack.

“Mattie?” he called, “How was your-” wandering wearily over to the doorframe and remembering the second that he reached for the light switch that Matthew wasn’t due home for another three hours.

“Nope~” a voice cooed in his ear and he didn’t even have time to lash out before a burning pain exploded in his shoulder.

—-

“And you’re absolutely sure this is not going to make me a werewolf?” Matthew asked for what must have been the thousandth time in the last three minutes. Matt could practically smell the adrenaline pumping off him, hear the frantic tattoo of his heartbeat. The poor kid was obviously still scared stiff. “Because I really don’t want to wake up with a tail.”

“You’re not going to turn into a werewolf,” Matt growled, an edge of annoyance in his voice.

“How long have you been like this? Were you born a wolf?” Matthew had thousands of questions and if Matt hadn’t been so sure that he was going to break down completely if he stopped asking them, he wouldn’t answer.

“There’s no such thing as a born wolf, the genetic mix makes us infertile. Like mules,” he explained, staring at the dark stretch of road ahead of them and the constant, even beam of the headlights, “Lycanthropy is a bloodborne disease. It’s spread by mixing blood, nothing else.” There was a pause and Matthew looked over at Matt, the golden light of a passing street lamp outlining his profile. Matt was… Matt was actually really attractive. “Twenty-six years.” The words jolted Matthew out of his sudden revelation.

“What?”

“I’ve been this way for twenty-six years,” the wolf repeated with a deep sense of resignation.

“How old were you?” Matthew breathed, eyes wide and slightly hesitant. He was beginning to calm down slightly now and his hands were trembling.

“Two, so I’m told,” he shrugged, eyes still fixed on the road though the hands on the wheel were now white-knuckled.

“A child,” the human murmured, curling up in on himself, his whole body starting to shake. He felt cold. He had almost died back there, he had thought he was going to die. He might still kick the bucket if Matt was feeling that way inclined.

“It’s easier to turn children. The disease attacks the structure of your DNA, your bones, your brain. It’s easier when the person isn’t fully developed. Most people over the age of fifteen die,” There was something deeply bitter in that deep, gravelly voice and Matthew almost wanted to hug him. If he wasn’t quite so afraid.

“That’s cruel,” Matthew said, drawing his knees up and hiding his face in them.

“So’s life; get over it,” Matt said, a little more harshly than he had intended. Sighing, he pulled over outside the address he had been given and pulled a shirt from between the seats. “Inside,” he instructed as he draped the shirt around Matthew’s shoulders to try and warm the kid up a bit, “Before you pass out. I’m not going to carry you if you do.”

“Thanks,” he sighed, rubbing the corner of his eye with a fingertip so he wouldn’t disturb his contact lenses and coming away with a finger full of eyeliner. Staring at his blackened fingertip as though it had just insulted his hockey team, he got out of the truck, feeling like he’d been awake for much longer than he had been. “Ah, shit!”

“What?” Matt asked, his head snapping around, “What is it?”

“I left my house keys in my car,” was the grumbled response as Matthew trudged towards the door. “I hope Al’s awake.”

Hearing an exasperated groan, Matthew rolled his eyes, a hand on the doorknob. Which he pulled back almost immediately when the door creaked under his hand. “It’s open,” he said, confused. There was a strange sound behind him, and Matthew turned to see Matt with an animalistic snarl on his lips, sniffing the air.

“No,” Matthew said, “No, no, no, you can’t do that here! The neighbours could see-” he didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Matt shoved him back, metaphorical hackles up, and stormed into the house.

“Matt-!” he hissed, following after him, “What the hell? If my broth- my bro-” a tremor wracked his body. There was Alfred, on the kitchen floor, blood splattered all over his shirt and the tiles, matted dark in his hair.

There was a man crouching over him, dark and small and - Matthew would have put good money on it - a werewolf. But that was just an educated hunch based off of the way Matt was leaning over him across Alfred’s body and snarling.

Alfred’s body.

“Matt,” Matthew snapped, “Stop posturing and hold that son of a bitch down,” he said, pointing at the man hovering over Alfred like some kind of sick, twisted mother hen. The wolf’s attention turned to the human beside him.

“You don’t get to give me orders,” he growled and in that moment Matthew saw his life flash before his eyes for the second time that evening. But he stood firm.

“That is my brother on the floor, now  _hold him down_ ,”  his scowl matched that of the werewolf, and with an angry huff Matt stepped over Alfred, seizing the smaller man by the throat and pinning him to the ground. Surprisingly, the other wolf went down without a fight, simply twisting his body so that he wasn’t showing the man on top his stomach. Definitely some kind of werewolf. Dropping to his knees and getting himself full of blood, Matthew checked Alfred’s pulse. Strong, fast. Weird but good.

“Mattie?” Alfred asked, voice thin.

“I’m right here, Al, it’s okay. I’m going to get the first aid kit, okay? You’re safe,” he glanced at Matt, who nodded. Alfred was safe, he had the other werewolf pinned down. Dashing to the bathroom, Matthew felt like his head was spinning. There was just no end to the weirdness that was raining down upon him today. He had to keep moving. Keep focused. If he thought too much about the fact that his brother had been attacked by a werewolf then he was going to have a total breakdown. Crisis later; Alfred now.

Snatching the first aid kit down from the bathroom cabinet, he jogged back to the kitchen and got back down on the floor.

“What’s your favourite sport,” Matt was asking Alfred, his voice surprisingly growl free and it gave Matthew a jolt of surprise to realise that the werewolf was keeping his brother conscious.

“I like football. The ‘merican kind,” Alfred sighed, his voice soft and tired where he lay.

Giving Matt a grateful nod, Matthew took over.

“Okay, Al, come on, let’s get you patched up.” The bleeding was slow and sluggish, and though there was a fair bit of it, it wasn’t arterial red; for which Matthew was eternally thankful. Carefully, he cleaned up the wound, which wasn’t actually all that big. Small, even. One row of moderately deep punctures that had scraped back the first few layers of skin. There were one or two punctures lower down as well, evenly spaced.

“This is a bite mark,” Matthew said softly, horrified.

Matt snarled, turning to the wolf on the floor. “Never could keep your teeth in your fucking mouth, could you?” he snapped and the man under him gave a very canine whine.

“He’s Alpha,” the man pinned to the floor rasped - whether it was natural growl or because Matt was currently crushing his windpipe Matthew neither knew nor cared - “Please- Matt. He’s Alpha.”

“You know this asshole?” the Canadian asked, carefully dressing Alfred’s shoulder. His brother was burning up with some kind of fever or infection. He needed a tetanus shot and he needed it now. Hopefully the rogue wolf didn’t have rabies or anything similarly unpleasant.

“We’re- pack,” the wolf on the floor gasped and Matt gave a vicious snarl.

“You said you didn’t have any pack?” Matthew’s expression morphed into one of suspicion as he helped Alfred sit up, holding his brother to him.

“I don’t!” the Alpha snapped angrily, teeth flashing. The man beneath him wheezed a laugh, a sharp smile on his lips.

“Once a Bonnefois-” he coughed, a pointed grin stretching over sharper teeth, “Always- a Bonnefois.”

Matt let an out an angry roar, his face contorted with rage and his nose pressed right up against the other’s. The sound seem to flatten out all ambient noise and left a ringing in Matthew’s head so that all he could hear was his own rabbit-heart pulse and the shallow rasp of Alfred’s breathing.

“Do it,” The man gasped for breath, “ _Brother_.”

Matthew looked from one to the other and back to Alfred, utterly confused and somewhat at a loss as to how to help him. The natural instinct being to call an ambulance but he wasn’t sure if that was the correct thing to do in the instance of werewolf attack.

_Most people over the age of fifteen die._

“Matt!” There was a sharp crack as Matthew reached over and slapped the nearest part of the werewolf he could reach - his unfortunately attractive, denim-clad ass - to try and get his attention. It worked, though while he was expecting to have his throat ripped out for his boldness, Matt seemed to have been startled out of his mindless rage.

“Alfred’s been bitten,” he said, feeling oddly small and stupid, holding his big brother upright and surrounded by creatures of myth and lore. “What do I do?”

Heaving a sigh, Matt’s grip around his prisoner’s neck must have relaxed some because the man drew a huge breath, coughing and spluttering in his haste.  “There’s not much we can do,” he shrugged. “He’ll either die by the next full moon or he’ll turn. He’ll stay like this until then.”

“He’s twenty-four,” Matthew said, feeling his stomach sink slowly through the tiled floor, “You’re an Alpha, can’t you do something?”

“There’s no cure for this,” Matt’s words were blunt and bitter, “He will turn or he will die. He’ll probably die.”

“I’m part of your  _pack_!” Matthew protested, getting desperate now as he looked from Alfred’s fevered face and Matt’s impassive expression. “Doesn’t that mean _anything_?”

“There’s nothing I can do!” Matt barked out, irritated. Growling, he got up, leaving the other werewolf on the floor and advancing on the humans. Matthew clutched Alfred to him, terrified.

“He’s my  _brother_!” his voice cracked.

Sighing, Matt gave him a tired look before crouching down and putting his arms around Alfred’s limp body, “Where’s his room?”

“Upstairs second door on the left,” was the whispered answer as his arms fell away from his brother when Matt stood up straight.

“Take a shower. Get some sleep,” the Alpha said sternly as he walked through the kitchen door, leaving Matthew staring after him. One foot on the first step, he stopped.

“Pack means not giving you false hope.”


	4. Werewolf Angst

Lupus Maledicte - 04  
Matthew woke feeling groggy and sore and wondering why, rolling over to look at his alarm clock, he sat up with a sharp gasp. He’d slept through his morning lectures.

Alfred!

Scrambling out of bed, Matthew raced through to Alfred’s room. His brother was sweating and tossing, but there were ice-packs all around him on the bed and he made a mental note to buy some more later so that there could be a rotational cycle during the next week until the full moon. Stroking damp hair back from Alfred’s forehead, Matthew let out a shaky sigh.

“Please, Al,” he whispered. “Don’t..?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say die. “Don’t go anywhere. I’m going to take another shower.” Though he doubted Alfred could even hear him.

The shower made him feel slightly less like a walking corpse and, slightly damp, he made his way downstairs. He still had to mop up the blood on the floor. God, he should have put something on it the night before. But there was no mess when he walked into the kitchen. The tiles were as white as they could be given the circumstances and the air smelled strongly of ammonia. Matt was sitting on the cold tiles, long legs stretched in front of him and his head bowed in sleep. The wolf who had bitten Alfred was curled up in the foetal position at the Alpha’s feet.

Rubbing sleep from one eye, glasses folded into the neck of his pyjama shirt, Matthew nudged Matt’s thigh with a bare foot.

“Get up. C’mon. Up,” he encouraged as Matt’s eyes flicked open, looking up at Matthew and seeming genuinely startled to see him.

“You’re different,” Matt said, giving him a curious look as he clambered to his feet. This wasn’t the raccoon-eyed, leather-clad young man of the previous evening. Well, it was. But he looked much younger, fresher faced and somehow sweeter. There was an innocence in his face that he didn’t have before and Matt was quite puzzled by it.

“You think?” he asked acerbically, blond waves fluffing out around his head as they dried and his tone of voice totally annihilating any cherubic imagery Matt might have been tempted to apply to him, “My brother is dying, my kitchen is full of lycanthropes, I missed all my classes and I suppose you want breakfast?” The words seemed much too bitter for such a gentle face.

“What?” Matt asked, nonplussed.

“Do you eat?” Matthew said, slowly enunciating each word as though Matt was particularly stupid.

“Yes,” Matt answered in the exact same tone of voice. The human gave him a tight smile,

“Bacon and eggs it is,” he muttered, opening the fridge and sticking his head in.

“Actually I’m a vegan,” The voice wasn’t one that Matthew recognised. It was husky and smooth all at once, which sent the weirdest shivers up his spine. Slowly Matthew peered around the fridge door, a deep frown carved into his forehead as he came face-to face with the wolf who had bitten his brother.

“You’re a werewolf,” he said disdainfully, everything about his expression indicating that he thought the other was so very much less than that, “You can’t be vegan.”

“Actually,” the dark-haired werewolf was much smaller than Matt was, darker and brighter and more excitable all at once, and keen as mustard to explain to Matthew why exactly he could live like he did, “I can! See, Matt’s Alpha. That mean’s he’s got more wolf in him than human. He’s maybe, 70 per cent wolf, right? He’s made to be a carnivore. And I’m an omega, I’m more human than wolf, so I get to eat whatever I want!” He gave Matthew a nod and a wink, and Matthew scowled.

“You can forage in the garden, then,” the human said snippily as he returned to rummaging through the fridge, pulling out packets and cartons as though he was cooking for his brother who ate enough to feed the population of China. He paused. Alfred wouldn’t be eating with them. But Matt looked like he could eat a lot and for some reason the idea of cooking a small meal was incredibly upsetting just then.

“That’s not very hospitable,” the self-proclaimed omega wolf said huffily, trying to go for an expression of wounded innocence but it just didn’t seem to sit right on his face. Setting the eggs and bacon down very carefully on the counter, Matthew turned to face the two werewolves, a brittle smile on his lips.

“Hospitable,” he said quietly, smile wobbling like an amateur tightrope walker, “Hospitable? You broke into my home, you attacked my brother, I let you stay the night here-” his composure was fast slipping and he blinked rapidly, mashing his lips together to try and stop them trembling. Alfred was dying upstairs and this asshole wanted hospitality. Matthew felt very small and very young and very useless, looking between Matt and the other werewolf. “There’s vegetable stir-fry in the fridge,” he whispered, walking quickly out of the room, back to Alfred’s bedside to muffle his tears in his brother’s Marvel Comics duvet cover.

From downstairs he heard a low snarl and a sharp yelp, like a kicked dog.

—-

Two days til the full moon and Matthew was more stressed out than he had ever believed possible. In two days he would either not have a brother or he was going to have to get his brother a flea collar. Both of which were fairly terrifying options. On top of that, the two werewolves who had arrived in their home didn’t seem to show any signs of leaving. Tommy, he had since discovered his name, he could understand even if he didn’t like it.

If he left Alfred’s bedside for so much as a second, Tommy would find some way to weasel in there and sit on the floor with his chin propped up on the mattress, just watching Alfred with the most sickening hope in his eyes. And every time Matthew found him, he would haul the hapless werewolf from the room, and though he was quite sure that Tommy could have shaken him off if he wanted to, he always left meekly.

Matt, on the other hand, seemed marginally less willing to hang around indoors - obviously not a house wolf - but he still seemed to make a definite attempt at civilisation while he was around the house. Still, seeing his hulking frame squished up onto the sofa did rather give the impression of a tiger in a dollhouse.

“Why are you even here,” Matthew asked wearily, shoehorned against the arm of the loveseat, clinging to it so that he didn’t slide down the couch cushions and settle against Matt, who was acting as a kind of lupine barrier between the human and the omega, “You could leave you know. I mean. Thanks for saving me back there but you don’t have to stick around.”

“I’m not an oathbreaker,” Matt grunted, shifting the cushions so that Matthew was bounced up and down again. Matthew huffed, blowing a stray lock of hair.

“Look, I’m not going to hold you to that pack covenant or whatever it-”

“Hold up a second there, doe eyes,” Tommy butted in, leaning around Matt to look at the human, “You got bristle britches here to swear you in on pack covenant? In front of all the Alphas in North America?” he asked, red eyes wide and eyebrows up around his hairline, looking somewhere between stunned and impressed.

“I didn’t ask him to,” Matthew said, immediately on the defensive as soon as Tommy got involved, “He just did.”

“It’s not a big deal, drop-” Whatever Matt was trying to tell them to drop they would never know because at that moment, Tommy butted in, looking like he’d just heard the best joke of his life.

“Not a big deal? Pack covenant is,” he laughed, nudging Matt - and judging by the Alpha’s expression, tempting fate as well - and leaning around to talk to Matthew, “It’s the biggest deal there is! Swearing something on pack covenant is a blood oath. If he breaks it, every pack on this continent will be gunning for him.” By now the omega was having a hard time speaking through his hyena-cackles of laughter.

Matthew glanced sidelong at Matt, trying to judge how much what Tommy had said was truth, and how much of it was the omega taking the piss, because he had been known to do that. Though it sometimes amazed Matthew that he could tolerate conversation with Tommy long enough to know what he was like.

The Alpha’s jaw was clenched tightly, quite determinedly looking at the mirror over the mantlepiece. In which he was looking at Matthew, his face getting steadily redder as he realised Matthew was staring back.

“You did that for me?” the human asked quietly, and Tommy drew a deep, shuddering gasp to calm his laughter.

“Yeah, I can’t believe it either. He hates humans-” the omega choked a gasp when Matt’s hand clamped around his neck, a thin whine escaping him.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” he said softly, a dangerously calm expression on his face, and Matthew looked on in horror as he saw Matt’s nails - more claws than anything else - digging into Tommy’s neck and seeing blood well up around the punctures.

“You’re not my Alpha,” the omega rasped, a vicious smirk, voice hitching when Matt squeezed harder.

“Who would want to be?” Matt answered, getting up and wandering off to go check on Alfred.

“Not,” Matthew said, looking at Tommy with a vague air of superiority, “As much as he hates you, apparently.”

Tommy gave a weak chuckle, touching the wounds on his neck, examining the blood that was on his fingertips when he pulled his hand back. “Yeah,” he sighed, looking from his hand to Matthew and giving a smile that held no kind of happiness. “I don’t even think he hates himself as much as he hates me.”


End file.
